Chaos Is A Friend of Mine

Third Placement

We received another foster placement last Thursday (the 21st). A sweet two-day old baby boy who I will call Chief (just online, not in real life). We still have Cute-Bomb (formerly Bullfrog) so our house and van are busting at the seams with four children. I love it!

Chief is only going to be with us for a couple more weeks and then he is going to live with his grandma so I'm soaking up every minute that he's here - holding him and smelling his head whenever I get the chance. I really don't even mind that he only sleeps about an hour and half at a time at night because he's so darn sweet.

Chief looks a lot like my biological children - same eye and hair color - so whenever I take him out in public passersby assume that he's mine. Strangers are constantly stopping me to tell me that I look great for someone who just had a baby. I just smile and say thank you!

I've had a lot of people ask me if I would mind answering questions about foster parenting. I am ALWAYS happy to answer questions about it so if you have any fire away. The world can always use more foster parents - unfortunely.

Kids Say (And Do) The Darndest Things

West: I'm good at school and naughty at home.
Me: Why is that West?
West (grumpily): Because I'm an opposite person!

*****

Cash's front tooth is on the bottom of Lake Quivera. West accidentally kicked it out while they were swimming (it was already very loose.) Now both his top front teeth are gone!

*****

Cash: I get to go to kindergarten tomorrow!
West: Stop talking about kindergaren Cash - you're going to miss me!

*****

So West made his own dinner tonight - he called it "Dinner Pie". It was as digusting as the name implies - he took a whole wheat tortilla, spread it with Catalina dressing, honey and butter, then he added cut up chicken nuggets and topped it with cheddar cheese. Travis cooked it for him on the skillet til the cheese melted. And then West ate it up!

*****

West tried to kiss me like Ken kisses Barbie on Toy Story. In the middle of Sam's Club.

*****

West is a baby hoarder. He has one tupperware container for his fingernail clippings, one for feathers from his pillow and one for used popsicle sticks.

*****

West: Mommy, what's a mo-hog? Me: I don't know. West: It's a mohawk for a pig!

*****

West decided that he's going to grow his hair out "long like mommy hair" so he can have a baby in his tummy someday. I tried to explain that this is not possible but he's going to try it anyway.

*****

Went to a wedding tonight. Cash spent the entire 20 minute ride home telling us all about the husband and husband wedding he and West were going to have. He said since it was two boys getting married, West would be the "bride" and he would be the "ide".

*****

West: "A bra is like overalls for your breasts right?"

Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is both the story of how HeLa cells revolutionized medical research and the story of the woman those cells came from - Henrietta Lacks.

I liked how the author alternated between the scientific HeLa story and the story of Henrietta Lacks and her descendants every other chapter. The author does a great job of explaining things in terms that non-scientists can understand - I don’t have a mind for science at all and I actually understood the scientific part of the story.

This book was a selection for my book club Conversati-Ohm and I thought it was a great book club pick. There are so many discussion points – the club had one of our liveliest discussions. The topic we talked about the most was the ethical issues surrounding the taking of and sometimes profiting from tissues samples from patients without their knowledge and/or consent. Also, Henrietta’s descendents, especially her daughter Deborah, were very interesting and complex people and that lead to a lot of discussion as well.

This is a great non-fiction book about science for non-scientific people.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Cheap Cabernet

Cheap Cabernet: A Friendship by Cathie Beck
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Cheap Cabernet is a memoir of the author’s relationship with her best friend Denise who has multiple sclerosis. Cathie and Denise have a very close but tumultuous relationship. The author hints very early on in the book that Denise is no longer living. Upon finishing the book, the first thing I wondered was if Cathie had Denise or Denise’s relatives’ blessing when she wrote this book. Denise has a quite a few personality flaws and the author lays them out bare. She also recounts some embarrassing moments of Denise’s, like when Denise’s MS got so bad that she couldn’t make it to the bathroom in time and recounts other private moments she and Denise shared. I felt very uncomfortable on Denise’s behalf most of the time while I was reading. If Denise herself had written the book or approved of it in some way, I think I would have felt differently.

All of that notwithstanding, this was a nicely written chronicle of a friendship between two very different women. I suffer from a chronic illness myself so I could relate to Denise’s stoicism and frustration while facing her disease. Caregivers and friends of those with a chronic illness will no doubt relate to Cathie really wanting to help her friend and yet being helpless most of the time.

(I received this book courtesy of the publisher and the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.)

View all my reviews

Book Review: All American Girl

All-American Girl by Meg Cabot
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Samantha Madison is a typical misfit teenager until the day she inadvertently saves the President of the United States from an assassination attempt. Then her life changes in more ways than she could have imagined.

I thought the characters were well-developed and realistic. Samantha especially was genuine and likeable. All American Girl is a fluffy, funny teenage romance that was great to listen to in the car.


View all my reviews

Book Review: Ready or Not

Ready or Not by Meg Cabot
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is the sequel to All American Girl but I listened to it without having listened to the first book. Then I liked it so much I went back and listened to All American Girl as well. I don’t feel like it mattered that much that I listened to them out of order.

Ready or Not is the story of Samantha Madison, the girl who saved the President of the United States life in All American Girl. She’s the teenage ambassador to the UN and has been dating the First Son for over a year. She is trying to decide if she is “ready or not” to have sex with her boyfriend. I thought this book handled teenage sex very responsibly. There was a lot of discussion of birth control, disease prevention options and the emotional after effects and Sam took the decision very seriously. There were not any graphic sex scenes or anything.

I’ve decided that Meg Cabot books make the perfect audio books - great narrators and light and funny plots that don’t require a lot of concentration. I’m quickly working my way through my library’s collection.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Every Last One

Every Last One: A Novel by Anna Quindlen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Every Last One follows the day to day life Mary Beth Latham, a typical married mom of three teenagers. Life is routine, pretty much the same day in and day out. Then halfway through the book a senseless tragedy strikes the family. The rest of the book deals with the sudden changes in the family's life and the recovery process. I don’t want to say too much more and give away the plot. Even though this book was horribly sad, I enjoyed reading it. I finished it in about two days because it haunted me until I was done.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Swapping Lives

Swapping Lives by Jane Green
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Swapping Lives is the story of Vickie Townsley and Amber Winslow. Vickie is the features director at Poise magazine in England and is living the life of an urban, single woman in her mid-thirties. Amber is a rich housewife in Connecticut. Amber enters and wins a contest sponsored Poise magazine to swap lives with Vickie for a month to see if the grass really is greener on the other side. Is being a single girl as carefree and fun as it seems? Is being a rich, suburban housewife less stressful than being a career gal?

This was definitely a fluffy, chick-lit book. It was entertaining to read about Amber’s McMansion and her superficial social circle of Junior League friends. At the same time, I think reading it while currently experiencing a horrible economy (in real life) took some of the fun out of it. Amber’s friends, and to a lesser extent Amber, are so materialistic it’s almost unbelievable. When Amber is living Vickie’s life in England, she’s incredulous that one of Vickie’s stay at home mom friends actually takes care of her two children WITHOUT A NANNY. Maybe some wealthy people really are that clueless to how regular people live but Amber’s character grew up in a trailer park so I found it hard to believe in her case.

One thing that irritated me about this book is the lack of editing of the American dialogue. This book is written by an English woman and I would think someone would check the dialogue of the American characters to make sure it’s authentic. But the American characters say things like, “He just turned up” and “I want a proper dinner”. One English character tells an American character that they are being “saucy” and the American character had never heard of that word. It’s not really a big deal but it was distracting.

This was a good book to listen to in the car – it didn’t require much deep thought but was light and fun. It would be a good summer beach read too.

View all my reviews

Book Review: The Map of True Places

The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Map of True Places is the story of Zee Finch, a psychotherapist whose world is shaken up when one of her patients commits suicide. Zee goes home to Salem and discovers that her father Finch’s Parkinson’s disease is much more advanced than she’d thought. Zee’s mother killed herself when Zee was twelve and now Finch’s longtime companion has moved out. Zee extends her visit in Salem to care for her ailing father. While there, Zee must confront her unresolved issues about both her mother and her patient’s suicides.

The plot of this book moved fairly slowly in the first two-thirds of the book and then turned into a roller coaster of twists and turns in the last third. For me, the pay-off in the last third was worth the wait – I didn’t see any of the twists coming. I haven’t read Brunonia Barry’s first book, The Lace Reader. From what I understand a few of the main characters in that book are minor characters in this book but it’s not a sequel. I don’t feel like I missed anything not having read the first book.

(I received this book courtesy of the publisher and the GoodReads FirstReads program.)

View all my reviews